Saturday, October 29, 2016

“I think we’re trying to show there are different kinds of love,” said Donohue, 25, of the skate’s theme. “Obviously, there is romantic love which everyone in figure skating goes through in a way, but there is a lot more to love than just what you give to someone else. There is a lot of love surrounding yourself. We have a lot of movements in this program that are kind of about enjoying ourselves and our own space, so I think it’s a global kind of thought.” *Hubbell Donohue

this

Tracy: "Their new coaches were able to help
Virtue and Moir technically because that's why they
lost the gold in Sochi, they were a little bit vulnerable
technically, substituting a lot of above the waist
bullshit and posturing for actual skating skills."
ETA: VM were defeated on PCs, TRACY.
Fuck her. I don't care.

One of the unbearable parts of the last Olympic cycle was Davis White outscoring Virtue Moir on freaking pcs and then the media saying despite Virtue and Moir's matchless skating Davis and White were technically more consistent. Well, now they're neck and neck to Chock Bates, aren't they. At SKATE CANADA.

ETA - Following the fd with my side eye. Edited. Virtue Moir rules still apply. Papadakis Cizeron can still get astronomical scores with twizzles that can best be described as negligible, but Virtue Moir are scored against their best selves, a "best" self that still gets scored in the neighborhood of the scores awarded crap teams. The only other team with those special rules are the Shibs.

Saturday, October 1, 2016

I'll expand on this post tomorrow, but for now - Virtue and Moir remain light years ahead of everyone else competing. There were glitches that, for every other team save VM, are hand-waved, but VM are measured against their best selves. This is especially true of Papadakis and Cizeron - glitches, stumbles, slightly off-time - who cares.

I don't think ice dancing, as a sport, cares anymore about unison, or how close a team skates together. Nor does ice dancing care much about direction changes and close hold.

I don't know what the ISU was setting up by putting a journeyman team on the top of the world championship podium two years running, whether it was in anticipation of Virtue Moir's comeback or not, but for me, personally, the idea of actually having to discuss Papadakis and Cizeron vis a vis Virtue Moir and their respective chances is exhausting. One theory, I supposed, is that all of the other teams were soundly defeated by Virtue and Moir in the past, while Papadakis and Cizeron weren't even in the picture, and so the sport can pretend anything it wants about them. That's the depressing angle. The angle that these teams will take turns beating each other until the Olympics is another depressing angle. The somewhat not depressing angle has to do with something like - Skate Canada sold out Virtue and Moir from 2010-2014 in exchange for establishing, post-2014, a Canadian rink as the top ice dance training center in the world, which was done using P&C. Now VM are there to legitimize this deal.

So far, reading the forums, I see some participants think already Virtue and Moir look happier compared with how they looked skating the music Marina Zoueva of course FORCED upon them in 2013-2014.